Ashes
by Do Not Even Try
Summary: People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes. It didn't matter though. You can't get what you already have. LACKSON


**A/n: This is definitely not my best work, but it's lackson, so that makes up for it :)**

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Her hands shook severely.

She clasped them together tightly and took in a measured amount of breath. She let her eyes flutter shut and held the air in her lungs. She held it there until the intense burning started, and her muscles contracted for oxygen. She held it even after the dizziness, and the watery eyes started. She held it until she could feel pressure about to explode in her head.

She exhaled shakily, gasping for breath. Her knees buckled underneath her and she fell to the floor. Her blond hair veiled in front of her face. She sat there, slumped over, for a countless amount of time.

Eventually, she forced herself to stand back up. The pain was eating at her heart, but he wouldn't have wanted her to fall down. He would have wanted her to stand tall.

Her shaking hands touched the box.

Its smooth, polished surface was greasy underneath her fingers. She had a fleeting image of picking up the box, only to have it slide out of her hands and fall on the linoleum floor. In her mind, she watched it crack down the middle. Except what leaked out of it wasn't what she would have expected to. She watched him climb out, completely fine. He stood up and stretched, only to smile at her in that familiar way.

And then the image was gone.

She was alone.

He was not here.

And he would never smile at her again.

Her breathing pattern was irregular, but she didn't see why that was unusual. Everything about her was going to be unusual now. Nothing would be the same. Nothing.

She reached toward the box again. It was stainless steal. _Like my heart_, he had explained in his suicide letter. She remembered curling up in her armchair expecting a love letter, only to find the exact opposite. _I once was imprisoned inside my steel heart, _he had wrote, _now, I would like my heart to be imprisoned inside a steel box. _

Suicidal people think they are doing the special people in their life and favor by a last letter. But as she let tears burn a trail down her face, she felt this was wrong. She would have rather the last letter his hand wrote been anything but a last letter. Anything.

If he would have just done it, she wouldn't have had to live with the guilt. She wouldn't have had to think that maybe, just maybe, if she would have read that note sooner she could have stopped him. She didn't have to sit awake at night wondering how in the world she never saw the signs. She didn't have to wonder if there was a secret message behind the words he scrawled. She didn't have to be the one with that goodbye letter.

Last letters did not ease the pain of death. A piece of paper with words does not replace a human being. The letter could not whisper to her at night. The letter could not hold her hand when she was frightened. The letter could not love her.

She clasped her hands on the sides of the greasy stainless steel box. She lifted it carefully. It felt heavy in her hands. She imagined she could hear him whispering inside it. And, foolishly, she rubbed the side of it. When no genie dressed as her husband appeared, she sobbed.

She cradled him in her arms like she would have cradled their child. Her legs restless drove her around and around and around the living room in lifeless rotations. When she was younger, skateboarding had helped ease her pain. But now she didn't want anything but him.

'Everything is possible for him who believes'. It was in the Bible. She shut her eyes, and she believed. She believed that when she dropped this container, her husband would emerge. She believed that he wasn't really dead. She believed that he was right beside her this moment, whispering in her ear.

But when she opened her eyes, no one was there.

The setting sun sent rays of multicolored hues into the room. It glinted maliciously off every sharp object, reminding her just how easy this was going to be.

She held the heavy steel box to her body as she walked slowly, in a dreamlike quality, to the kitchen. They had painted the walls blue together. She remembered it vividly. They fought over the name. She said it was cornflower blue, he said it was indigo. It didn't matter much then, it was just something to flirt over, but now it mattered. And as she looked at the walls, she agreed with him.

She grabbed the plastic case off the counter. It felt light in her hands compared to the steel box. She set it on top of the box and walked toward the balcony. She pushed back the glass door, and walked into the breeze.

She set the steel box on the table. Her hands worked open the plastic container. She reached in and touched the black object. When she picked it up, it was heavy and ominous in her hands. She held it in her hands into it was warm. Then she got good look at it.

It was a gun. Fully loaded, and cocked.

She didn't leave a goodbye letter. There was no one left to leave one to. She grabbed the steel box in her left arm. She walked over to the railing. She stared down at the busy Los Angeles streets.

The gun was to her head. And as she put her finger to the trigger, only one thing was running through her mind.

People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.

With a sick smile on her face, she pressed down on the trigger. She blew out her life like a candle, and her body went falling over the railing with the steel box in her arms.

After all, it didn't matter. Her husband was already ashes inside the steel box. You can't get what you already have.


End file.
